


Two Brothers

by redfiona



Category: Impact Wrestling | Total Nonstop Action Wrestling
Genre: Gen, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29589762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: Joseph feels sad about all the terrible things that have happened to his brother, and the distance between them, not least of all because he knows how easily they could have happened to him.
Kudos: 2





	Two Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> Set during [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyss_\(wrestler\)#Joseph_Park_\(2012%E2%80%932014\)) storyline. If you know it, you'll know why I've gone with the unreliable narrator tag.

For a boy his size, there's two ways school can go. You're either big and strong and third pick for the football team, or you're a big, fat nerd, who is the victim of all the school's bullies because the size he is, he ought to be able to defend himself but hasn't got the co-ordination to do it. If he'd had a brother, it might have happened to him. Joseph was always lucky that it didn't happen to him, despite his nerdiness and his glasses and his two left feet.

Yes, Joseph said, if he ever spoke about school, it was his brother that all the bad things happened to.

Obviously, there are good ways and bad ways of responding to that sort of thing, and Joseph, with his twice-sainted name, would have responded the right way - kept his head down, studied, succeeded despite everything. His brother might not have done, might have responded by becoming worse than the bullies, violent with no limits, no end to what he'd do when angered, only abyssal depths of rage. His brother might have slipped down, down and down, further into a cycle of violence.

Equally obviously, there would had to have been two of them, Joseph and a brother, because one person couldn't have both experiences. You couldn't keep your head down at school, do your homework, get top grades, and then slip out at night to get your revenge. Big as he was, he, or his brother rather, should have been instantly recognisable; it's amazing what even the most minor of disguises could do when the person looking was scared out of their wits. A mask maybe, something simple because it was homemade. It might not have covered his whole face, but it would be enough to hide who he was, even if his actions didn't do the hiding for him. Because nice, wimpy Joseph, who never fought back, he'd have nothing to do with barbed wire bats and grating people's faces against brick walls. But of course, it was his brother who would have done it.

What his brother did at night wouldn't have had any effect on Joseph. They never linked the victims to a perpetrator, and the victims never realised why they were targeted. What did forgettable daily cruelty at school, so commonplace that the teachers did nothing about it, have to do with violent assaults? In so much as any of them were capable of giving descriptions, they sounded so outlandish that the police assumed it was shock that made the victims imagine this borderline monster attacking them. Teenagers, out late at night, easy targets - the police assumed it was a mugger or a gang of them, and never looked to see what connected the victims. Joseph would wake up, strangely tired, sometimes with odd bruises on his knuckles, and carry on.

He'd get into law school. Not Ivy League, but who had that kind of money? Now Joseph had, if not got it made, at least reached the point where making it was in sight. And it would be less bad, nerds don't stand out the same way in law school. Sure, there'd be assholes in expensive suits with their beautiful wives who'd rub your face in it ... but Joseph could stay the course. Because you couldn't study law and creep out late at night. Mask off, someone wouldn't spot your potential to be something else. His brother could be that something else, he'd be unfettered - big, strong, powerful, dangerous. Joseph meanwhile, he'd smile and say no thanks to invites to the MMA-cum-Fight Club nights his coursemates attended, all 'who? me' and 'oh no, I couldn't hurt a fly'. White collar violence, an attempt to pretend to themselves that they were macho, macho men. It would be a pointless task for Joseph, who knew what he wasn't. His brother was the violent one, too much for their half-assed cage fights.

Graduating law school was only the first step. You needed to get a place to work, somewhere that could mentor you, and you needed the money to look the part. His brother had moved in with him at this point because, well Joseph wasn't sure why he did, but his brother must have come to live with him because there was a second bedroom in Joseph's apartment, and clothes he'd never wear in the laundry. He never sees his brother, just deduces his existence from the evidence. Dirty clothes, doctor's bills and some money left on the table to cover his living costs.

He must have a brother because someone with a law degree wouldn't be stupid enough to jump onto thumb tacks for money. It wasn't that it was an outlet - Joseph would have that, something like squash, something mostly harmless, so why would he need another - but his brother would have found it a useful way to help pay his part of the rent. Someone like his brother, mean and surly, wearing his cut-off denim vest pretty much full time, he'd find it hard to find a job. Or he could find them, but not keep them, or they weren't they kind of job you'd describe as steady.

And then one night, someone saw his brother fight and saw the potential in him, in the violence and the chaos. It was the first person to ever see something in his brother rather than in Joseph, and Joseph was relieved and happy for his brother, even if it meant he saw him less often. Because that's what would happen, in that situation, his brother would move out and Joseph would keep his nose down and keep working hard. He might never make partner but it wouldn't be through lack of effort. He wouldn't take a leave of absence from his job to chase a dream that couldn't be his own, because lawyers are talkers not fighters, especially ones as clumsy as him.

They'd lose touch, not deliberately, but because one would move house frequently due to the constant travelling and moving from promotion to promotion, while the other one wouldn't answer letters because he was always busy. That would explain how Joseph could turn up at TNA, looking for his brother, chasing up a workplace as his brother’s last known address because they were just that bad at communicating. Of course, this is when Abyss, not known for regularity in his behaviour, would have upped and vanished, meaning Joseph would have to stay to try to find him because this was the only lead he had. Yes, that was a series of circumstances Joseph could believe in, something that would act as an explanation for his presence here, and his absence previously. It all fitted together, it was all plausible, it was a prima facia case that Joseph Park was real, and this was the truth of what had happened to him, whatever anyone else said or wanted to believe.


End file.
